Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

I am pleased to be able to speak on the proposed legislation, the Road Safety Authority (Commercial Vehicle Roadworthiness) Bill 2012, a fine mouthful, although I cannot say I am as pleased as previous speakers. I welcome the Bill and wish the Minister well with it, but it is more evidence of our rush to bring in legislation of all kinds to make it more difficult for people who are the providers of employment and services. They are being banished off the land. I am in favour of road safety and I have no wish to see any kind of accident. That said, we need a detailed analysis of what is being done in this legislation. It is more evidence of a takeover of power by official Ireland and nothing else. There are too many regulations and there is excessive regulation in many areas. If we do not stop this, there will be no national recovery. I cannot understand how IMF and EU officials cannot see this. For every law Europe introduces, we seem to add ten more.

I salute the officers of the Irish Road Haulage Association who traverse the world and have done so for charitable works, for example, in Bosnia and other places beyond. They do so with safety, respect and a proud Irish flag. They are not cowboys or fly-by-night operators. Certainly, we have cowboys and fly-by-night operators and they must be dealt with. We should be passing appropriate legislation for them rather than this Bill. We should introduce legislation to deal with the laundering of fuel, unlicensed hauliers and the blackguardism that goes on.

Some Deputies suggest we should put a truck off the road if one of the tyre appears to peel. Do they know anything about the weight of these lorries, the pressure they are under and the standards? Have those who drafted this legislation ever sat behind the wheel of a truck, lay under it to change a wheel, put a jack underneath to repair it, filled it with fuel or paid for the cost of the fuel? No. This is the problem with Ireland today. Officialdom has gone stark raving mad and Ministers have allowed it.

This is a fine legacy left by the former Minister, Noel Dempsey. I heard Deputy Dooley referring to it. Mr. Noel Brett and Mr. Gay Byrne were mentioned. I respect Gay Byrne as a broadcaster but he seems to have an eternal right to a job for life as chairman of the Road Safety Authority. I have eight children and not one of them knows who Gay Byrne is. We need to talk to young people. Modern sports stars or journalists should be used to get the message across to these people. I am referring to pedestrians and cyclists who need to be careful and understand the dangers of trucks. A truck driver cannot have eyes and ears for everything. Those in our schools should be educated and we should consider education policies to educate people about the dangers, especially on our under-classified roads which are not fit for trucks much of the time. They were built for the ass and cart or the horse and cart but now there are 40 ft trucks whose drivers are finding it impossible to keep manners on them because in many cases the county councils will not force the landowners to cut the hedges under the existing laws. We have gone mad rushing through new legislation while ignoring old legislation and common sense. I call on the Minister of State to appeal to the Minister to revisit this. I realise there are good initiatives relating to rural schools and rural transport and so on. The Minister should go to the road hauliers and consult them rather than officials in the Department or the Noel Bretts and Gay Byrnes who know nothing about lorries, lorry yards or the maintenance or costs of running these businesses. They have no clue and only put more pressure on them across the board.

I salute the council officials who have done a good job in taxation over the years. It is a retrograde step to take it away from them. We have seen this with the HSE, the Road Safety Authority, the National Roads Authority and the medical cards. It is a case of a repeated mess and taking away from local democracy and local people who understand what is going on. A man approached me last week. He had to drive a tractor he imported from Cahir in County Tipperary to the Revenue Commissioners in Limerick to get it assessed. I mean no disrespect to the person who examined it in Limerick but they probably would not know a tractor from a bullock, but that is the way of it. We have gone bananas.

People are trying to live and stay in business but we appear to be hell-bent on putting them all out of business. This applies to the previous Government, the Government before that and the current Government. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation is in America trying to bring jobs to Ireland but we at home are on a merry-go-round with officialdom gone mad trying to close down ordinary, decent, hard-working business people. Two or three road hauliers are going out of business each day because they cannot survive. The are insured, have their lorries tested, have proper wages, have the tachograph in the cab and are adhering to all the legislation but they are being forced out. Despite this, we want other officials to be appointed rather than gardaí. There is a fancy name for such an official: a commercial roadworthiness vehicle, CRV, test operator. I imagine this will be a civilian who will get a briefcase. He should know everything about a truck but he would not know the engine from the mudguard at the back. Despite this he has the power to pull in a driver and take him to a weighbridge 20 miles away although the driver may have a deadline to make on the Continent or elsewhere. The official might believe something is wrong with the truck because he might hear a rattle or his watch might rattle or be ticking. It is patent nonsense. Unless we get a grip on this throughout the country, the country will go under. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I am in business and self-employed. This applies whether one is a shopkeeper, an ordinary agricultural contractor or a road haulier. Officialdom has gone mad. I mean no respect to the two officials sitting in the Chamber; they simply do not know. We should put these officials in these businesses for at least one or two weeks per year in order that they would understand the pain, pressure and the realpolitik of keeping businesses afloat and some sense of sanity would prevail while dealing with officialdom.

Our tractors were always assessed by Customs and Excise and that must be the way. Now one must drive a tractor 50 or 60 miles to a centre to meet an official. If it is wet, he will not come out in case he gets wet and one must drive home and come back again the following day. It is crazy and not good enough and we must cry halt.

I have no wish to have a go at Gay Byrne or Noel Brett but where were they when we were designing our wonderful motorways? All of this took place during the past ten or 15 years when they were in power with the former Minister, Mr. Dempsey. They built a motorway from Dublin to Cork without even a rest station. One cannot pull in to take care of the basic necessities. Members will know what I am talking about but it is a wet night and I will not go into it. I am simply referring to the basic essentials. Truck drivers are being treated like slaves. They have no place to stop to get cigarettes or some food. I condemn those responsible out of hand as well as the National Roads Authority, NRA. The way I describe it, we got rid of the IRA but now we have the NRA and it is almost as bad.

We will need the Senator from America to come back and oversee peace talks to get these officials to see some sense rather than carry briefcases. They should get out and understand what is going on in real Ireland. They should understand that people must generate business and must have respect for the laws. If we keep piling on the laws, every road haulier will need a solicitor to interpret all the legislation and to educate their drivers as well. These drivers have licences and have paid an increasing level of fees each year for the various tests they must do. One would think they were driving an aeroplane. Pilots are hardly as well-trained as these drivers, and rightly so. I am not suggesting we should cut short any legislation but unless we get some common sense back into the system in the country, we are going nowhere. I say as much proudly. I hope the Minister of State will consult the Minister and table amendments to the legislation because there is good in it.

We had "Prime Time Investigates". It has become the gospel of the land now. However, we saw what that programme did to a company in my county, Tipperary. The Department would not issue a licence because of "Prime Time Investigates". People should know that there have been some shoddy practices in "Prime Time Investigates". It might sound funny but it is not. It is the gospel according to St. Jude. I am unsure who is the patron saint of transport but I hope he comes down from heaven to help us.

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